


the sands of time

by dorenamryn



Series: Cloak And Dagger [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (kind of), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 10:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15241593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorenamryn/pseuds/dorenamryn
Summary: In which Biggs plants the seeds of rebellion, but not in the way one might think.





	the sands of time

Luke Skywalker and his friends were just like any other ordinary teens from Tatooine. They raced through the dunes, knew the ins and outs of most mechanical systems, and, of course, spent their celebratory nights drinking; for while water might have been scarce and hard to come by at times, something that Tatooine wasn't lacking in was alcoholic substances that were easily accessible to the youth.

It was quiet inside Tosche Station; the night was winding down. As of the moment, Luke was slouched on the sofa in the main room. The month before, he and his friends had all chipped in to buy it from a secondhand dealer in Anchorhead. In Luke’s opinion, the couch was an excellent addition, and it only added to the organized chaos that was the Tosche Station interior. 

Windy was sitting next to him, her head resting on his shoulder, and the others were either perched on various work tables or on the floor. Biggs sat the furthest away, nursing a bottle of some strong liquor that was a very bright and slightly unnerving shade of blue. He was drunk, unquestionably. On the other end of the room, Deak, the youngest of the group, was fast asleep on a stool, his head buried in his arms on a table beside him. 

“I kind of regret taking a swig from Biggs’ bottle,” groaned Laze “Fixer” Loneozner from his spot on the ground. “Whatever that stuff is, it’s kriffing _strong_.”

“No one asked you to drink the damn thing,” Tank said in response, taking a sip from his bottle of ale. His actual name was Janek, but no one ever called him that. He was known to his friends as Tank.

Out of view of the older boy, Camie rolled her eyes. “You just like to make fun of everyone for drinking it because you know you can’t stomach it yourself,” she stated loudly, raising her own bottle into the air. Tank at least had the decency to look mildly offended.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Camie,” he replied, rolling his eyes. Nodding his head towards Biggs, he added, “Biggs is soon gonna be out cold.”

“Am not,” Biggs slurred at the sound of his name. His eyebrows were furrowed, and there was a prominent crease between his brows that Luke knew wasn’t because of the alcohol.

“What happened, Biggs?” Luke questioned, his voice quieter than those of his friends. Biggs looked up, and something in the small room seemed to shift.

“I met a girl,” Biggs admitted after a terse moment, and then the room erupted into claps and cheers from the other boys. Luke, however, remained silent. There was something his friend was omitting. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. To Luke, this happened quite often. His friends always chalked it up to above average intuition, but Luke suspected it was something more. Beside him, Windy shifted.

“What aren't you telling us, Biggs?” Luke continued once the clapping had died down. Biggs looked up at him, his dark brown eyes meeting his.

“Her name is Kandji, Luke,” he said. “She’s a _slave_.”

The use of the word effectively quieted the rest of the room. The other occupants of the room hardly dared breathe. Yes, all that were present knew that Tatooine wasn’t perfect and that slavery was still a common practice in most of the bigger cities, but it wasn’t as if the average Tatooine youth had contact with anyone that was a slave. Hell, only a few of them had ever even been to Mos Eisley. The only news they got of the place came from their friend Micah, who lived there with his older sister.

“It’s not the way you think it is, guys,” Biggs continued. “She was scared. She told me— I’d only just met her and she _told me_ — There’s something bad stirring up on Tatooine, and she told me—“

“Well?” Interrupted Tank, impatient. “What the hell’d she tell you that’s got you repeating stuff over an’ over again?”

“It’s something to do with the Empire,” Biggs said, looking to his hands. Tank scoffed.

“Yeah, so what? Empire’s the Empire, Biggs. Those Imps do what they want, you know this,” the other boy said, taking a sip from his bottle. He huffed. “Makes no difference to me whether it's the Empire or it's the Hutts, although it's the Empire that's the big bad, so to speak, if you want to believe what the space pirates say.”

“They’re building something,” Biggs continued softly, seemingly ignoring Tank, his bottle clutched to his chest as if his life depended on it. “They’re gathering the biggest workforce that anyone’d ever _seen_. And if the— _slaves_ —are gone, then you _know_ what that means.”

The teenagers looked down. Everyone remembered the event that Biggs spoke of. It happened much like it was happening now; the Empire came, took the slaves of Tatooine, and then—then came the raids. The Hutts were down on their forced labour, so they sent thugs to raid many of the smaller settlements. They took mostly young adults, people who would’ve been around the same age that Biggs and the others were now. The loss was felt strongly by the community, and no one had recovered since. Outlying farms had been the most affected, and thus, there wasn’t as much water being harvested. Everyone’s mouths ran dry that summer.

“History is repeating itself,” Luke said quietly, looking to the ground. The atmosphere in the small room was solemn, their collective spirits almost as dim as the lights.

“We can’t let this happen again,” Fixer declared suddenly, his voice choked with emotion. The others held their tongues; Fixer’s older sister was one of the first to be taken. He’d been seven at the time. No one said anything, for a time.

“Well,” started Camie, breaking the silence that had fallen upon the group. “What can we do?”

“We have to stop it,” nodded Biggs, his brows knitted together in sheer determination, his voice far more solid than it had been a moment ago. “We cannot let this happen again.”

“Biggs is right,” Fixer agreed, meeting the older boy’s eyes, his gaze laced with something that the others had never seen before.

And then, the moment was over, and the friends fell back into comfortable silence. Fixer had been right in his earlier statement; Biggs had drifted off to sleep, and most of the others were not far behind. Luke turned his gaze to his own bottle, loosely held within his hand. Windy settled further into the couch at his side, her head warm where she placed it on his shoulder. He turned his attention to his own thoughts. Biggs' revelation had come as a shock to all of them, and although they had let it go for the time being in their collective drunken haze, Luke knew that the topic would surely be brought up again. 

Closing his eyes, Luke felt the gusts of the desert sweep through his chest and the sands of time solidify beneath his feet. He breathed in, once, the action going unnoticed by the rest of his friends. The winds of change were gathering on the dark, unseen horizon, Luke could feel it in his very bones. He only hoped that when the time came, he would be able to stand his ground.

**Author's Note:**

> long time no see everyone! yes, this is a pretty short snippet, but luke is finally here! his role in cloak and dagger is going to be quite different to canon, so you've been warned. anyway, hope you enjoyed! thank you for all the support on the previous installations of this verse. comments and kudos always make my day!
> 
> a quick note on the characters: most are only present in star wars legends at this point, although camie and a few others had an appearance in an anh deleted scene. also, windy starkiller is now a girl, and deak is her younger brother. 
> 
> chat with me on tumblr [here](http://skywclkrs.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
